Depression: Causes for the Christian’s Weariness

Depression. A word with great range. It can mean weariness, it can describe melancholy, for some it is a pit of hopelessness, for others utter despondency in their circumstances. It can be a by-product of fear, worry, doubt, and anxiety. The Root Cause Depression is a pervasive net of darkness. It spirals out of control,...

Remember Your Leaders: John Calvin

“No man ever had a profounder sense of God than he; no man ever more unreservedly surrendered himself to the Divine direction.” --BB Warfield Calvin is the father of Reformed Theology. It’s a wonder this Presbyterian didn’t begin our series with Calvin Central to reformed theology for Calvin was the supremacy of God’s glory and the Scriptures...

Remember Your Leaders: The Apostle Paul

Perhaps no man in Christian history, save Jesus Himself, has led the way as an example of faith to be imitated as the Apostle Paul. Our understanding of Hebrews 13:7 encourages us to both remember our leaders as those who 1) spoke the word of God to  others, and 2) whose life also matched the...

Remember Your Leaders: Augustine

[Augustine] has been strikingly called incomparably the greatest man whom, “between Paul the Apostle and Luther the Reformer, the Christian Church has possessed.” --Adolf Von Harnack quoted by BB Warfield Christian history is saturated with leaders whose impact has drastically changed the shape of Christian thought. Perhaps no leader, as Adolf Von Harnack has suggested, has transformed...

Remember Your Leaders: Martin Luther

The call to remember our leaders and imitate their faith in Hebrews 13:7 is not a suggestion for the Christian, it is a command. Both "remember" and "imitate" are in the imperative mood as verbs. In the same way as parents might tell their children to "stop running!" or to "eat your vegetables" or as...

Remember Your Leaders: Jesus

Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Hebrews 13:7 This imperatival statement from Hebrews is the endeavor to which we will pursue in the coming weeks. There are many whom the author of Hebrews is commending to us...

Remember Your Leaders

Who you are today is a reflection in some part of who has been a leader to you. Fundamental to the building block of life is learning from leaders in our lives. When we were children we learned what it mean to be human by copying the ways of our parents (i.e. walking, eating with...

Justification and Indulgences?

Can we earn our forgiveness with God? For many centuries of the Christian church, the issue of how we are saved from our sins and reconciled to God has been center stage. The term the church has used to describe one's salvation has been justification. The term implies a legal reckoning, that there has been...

Careful Who Leads You

No person is free from following another's leading. Humanity consists of followers and leaders and we all hold both offices at the same time. We follow someone and at the same time may be a leader to another. Who leads us will directly impact how we will lead others. Therefore to know who to follow...

Thoughts From the First Month as “Pastor JT”

My first month as a newly minted pastor has come to a close. This milestone will never happen again. I will never again be startled when someone calls me "Pastor JT." I will never again preach my first sermon to my new church. The calling to be a pastor began before this heart beat for...